Current state
mapping
toolkit
How to do a current state
mapping
This toolkit provides the necessary steps &
templates for running a current state mapping
project.
Note that the project scope and plan should be
adapted to the individual needs and goals of
your company
Considerations:
● Identify the challenges
you have i.e. high churn,
unhappy customers etc
● Review insights and data
you have to back up your
assumptions
● Based on the insight
decide on the perspective
you want to take; current
state or future state
Step 1
Considerations:
● Identify the scope of the
project; the customer
segment, and product
● Identify the internal
stakeholder who should
participate in project and
those who need to be
informed
Step 2
Get management buy-in and
align with company strategy
Considerations:
● Get management buy-in and
commitment to running a
project like this and doing
something with the actions
that are defined
● Ensure resources are
available and can commit
time to the full length of this
project
● Review company strategy
and ensure that the goals of
this project is aligned with
the strategy
Step 3
Considerations:
● Agree when the timing is
right to run the project
and when the key
resources from the
organisation are able to
fully commit
● Investigate if there are
related projects that will
impact this project
Step 4
Identify scope and internal
stakeholders
Identify current challenges
and insights
Agree on timing and define
any related activities
Current state mapping
Preparation before starting a mapping
High level process in a current state mapping project
Agree scope
Determine the
key customer
segment
Identify
stakeholders
Gather insight
that is available
2.
As-is mapping
Conduct current
state mapping
Understand the
customers
perspective
Understand the
internal
organisational
perspective
2.
As-is mapping
Run interviews with
customers
Summaries findings
from the customers
Align with findings
from the current
state mapping
Present to key
stakeholders
2.
As-is mapping
4.
Define actions
Agree on action to
improve the
experience
Prioritise the
actions
Identify potential
Business
improvement
projects
Business
improvement
projects
Based on the results
of the mapping and
the identified actions,
business
improvements
projects should be
run.
We are happy to to
provide guidance and
expertise for the
relevant projects
Read more about our
deliveries…
1
Scoping
2
Mapping
3
Validation
4
Actions
Part 1
Scoping
Practical information
● Who are the stakeholders that should be involved?
● Who will be part of the project team/steering group?
● Who will lead/own the project?
● Has time been allocated for the project team?
● What is the timeframe of the project? Any related projects we should be aware off?
Project outcome
● What is the desired outcome/deliverables?
● What are the success criteria?
● Do you see any risks?
● Who will be responsible for ensuring that the improvements are implemented?
● What are your expectations to us as a team?
Preparations:
Questions to ask in introduction meeting
● To initiate a journey mapping project it is important to do the
necessary preparations as listed above.
● Here are some key questions to help you plan:
○ What is the problem you are trying to solve? For who?
(customer, employee, product?)
○ What is your desired outcome? What are you hoping to achieve?
○ What is the product/product area you want to focus on?
○ What customer segment do you want to focus on?
○ Do you know of any challenges in this journey?
○ Have the management team agreed to prioritise the
improvement work that the project will identify and are the
expectations aligned?
○ What data is available about your chosen customer segment?
○ Has any customer research previously been conducted that is
relevant to the project?
○ What data should be measured now and after implementation
to see the results?
Key areas to
consider
● Before starting a mapping its useful to gather all the insight that
is available for chosen segment and product. This could include:
○ NPS (tNPS, rNPS, pNPS)
○ Web statistics
○ Support issues
● Also by interviewing key stakeholders you can identify what
feedback they have received from customers about current
challenges
Gather
insights
● Set KPIs for the project. This can be both qualitative or
quantitative but needs to be measurable
Suggested KPIs:
○ NPS scores
○ Onboarding time (from purchase to use)
○ SEO on website
○ Customer churn
○ Number of new customers
○ Response time to customers on all channels
○ Number of support issues
○ Use level
○ Number of leads compared to new customers
○ Interviews with customers
● For suggestions of KPIs per phase, see Customer journey:
description of the journey phases
Setting KPIs
Part 2
Current state mapping
Mapping the current state
● You should gather the key stakeholders from the various parts of the value chain in a workshop,
and map the customer journey according to how you expect/ think it is experienced by the
customer
● The group can then together identify the current state journey
● There is a difference between the expected journey and the actual journey. The expected journey is
the inside out perspective, how we think our customers experience the journey. The actual journey
is how our customers actually experience it
● It is recommended to start with the expected journey and then the actual journey, as you can
already identify quick wins and it is easier to interview customers if you have an idea of what the
experience is. But you must always validate the expected journey with actual customers
● You can use the journey below with the typical phases as a starting point
● For tips on running workshops, see……
Mapping the current state
● In order to make the ideas real and to be able to implement your ideal customer journey, we need
to understand what is happening in the internal organisation at Visma; often called the frontstage
and backstage processes and systems
● The frontstage layer refers to people and processes that have direct contact with the customers,
basically all the activities that are done by frontline employees that are visible to the customers,
including sales, marketing, support
● The backstage layer represents people, processes and systems that are invisible to the customers.
The backstage processes reveal which departments and systems are involved or triggered at specific
steps of the journey.
● When combining the front and backstage layers with the customer journey we a holistic view of the
service and how things are connected
Holistic: Complete view of customer journey and processes
E.g. Roles, processes,
business systems
All digital and
human interactions
with customers
Stages in customer
journey
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
FRONTSTAGE
BACKSTAGE
Awareness Decide Usage Support
Mapping the internal organisation
● Mapping the internal organisation can be done through workshop and/or interviews
● You now need to investigate the problems and challenges, this time looking internally at the Visma
processes and systems
● This will also help us to understand what could be the reason for the customers’ pains. We often see
that this goes hand in hand, where there are issues in the customer journey, normally you will find
pains at the front- and/or backstage processes of the company
● Getting this holistic view gives a better understanding of what is causing the actual problem, what is
possible to implement, where to challenge and how to challenge
● You can show the relationship between the customer journey and the internal organisation
including showing the teams that are involved in the different stages, what method is used, type of
touchpoints and what system are used
Part 3
Validate with customers
Interviews with customers
● To verify what actually happens seen from our customers perspective you need to interview 5-6
customers from your customer segment
● Don’t show them the journey you have mapped, rather ask them to explain what they have
experienced
● As the customers explain the journey, it’s useful to visualise it to ensure you understand it correctly.
Take them through each phase of the journey and ask questions:
○ What triggered you to want to look into solution x?
○ How did you purchase the solution?
○ How did you get started?
○ How did you experience that?
● You can also ask customers to keep a diary of all the touchpoints by sending you a picture of their
interactions with a short comment (WhatsApp or something similar). This is mainly relevant if they
are about to do an onboarding or something similar
● For more information about interview, read How to run interviews
Update the journey
● After the interviews, you can take the expected journey that you have already mapped and update it
based on the customer interviews, remove any assumptions which are false to real evidence
● It may be useful to identify and document where there are gaps between the expected and actual
journey
● Insert any new steps and the experience of each step – did we deliver as the customer expected?
● It could be useful to create a new version for the actual journey so it is possible to review the
expected journey at a later point.
Identify pains
● You now have the expected and actual customer journey
● It is now time to document where and why customers are getting stuck or frustrated (pain points) on
their path through the journey
● This should be based on what customers have told you during interviews or information you have
found be speaking to support or others
● Data may also help with understanding pain points. It is also good to documents touchpoints that are
working well so that we can ensure these are kept
● At the end, you need to priorities the paint points according to the severity and effort to implement
improvements
Ideation
● Once you have identified and prioritised pain points it is time to come up with ideas to improve the customer
journey
● These new ideas will help you with your future state journey
● Ideation can be done in a workshop where you come up with as many ideas as possible to solve specific pain
points. You can run several ideation sessions, and the starting point should be a challenge, a problem or a
question. There are lots of methods to use to help the group come up with ideas such as brainstorming,
brainwriting and 10 plus 10. The focus should be the quantity and not quality.
● Ideation will help you:
○ Ask the right questions and innovate with a strong focus on your customer and their needs
○ Go beyond the obvious improvements and increase the innovation of your solution.
○ Bring together different perspectives
○ Create volume and variety in the ideas
● After the workshop, you need to sort and cluster ideas and translate them into actions. Review the actions
against what is actually possible and timeframe. What can be done today, next week, long term and what
requires further investigation?
Part 4
Plan improvements
Working with improvements
● One outcome of the customer journey mapping is that you discover problem areas that need improving
● The improvement areas should be reviewed and prioritized, such as through impact vs effort map
● The responsibility should be addressed to the right stakeholder or department
● Create an implementation plan with short and long term improvements and assign owners to each action as well
as defining a timeline and desired results
● It is important to follow up the on-going improvements, especially things that may fall between different
departments and therefore does not have a clear owner
● You should follow up on the KPIs that you set at the start and create new ones in order to measure the effects
of the improvements
Testing and feedback loop
● Testing is an essential activity to reduce risk and uncertainty as early and cheaply as possible
● By testing your improvements ideas with customers gives you a chance to ensure your improvements are
grounded in reality and not just based on assumptions
● Testing also helps is be more certain that we are creating value for our customers. We are also able to react
quickly to negative feedback
